Perseverance pays for Cubs' Kalish

Outfielder overcomes 4 surgeries in 3 years

Four hours before Cubs games, outfielder Ryan Kalish typically slips into the hot tub to begin loosening up a tightly wound body that has endured four surgeries in three years.

Then Kalish heads into the weight room to rub foam rollers over his surgically repaired shoulders and neck, up and down his arms and legs; digging in for 60 seconds on each individual muscle. For the final hour of his 90-minute daily workout, Kalish performs a stretching regimen called SmartFlex he learned from his trainer in Los Angeles that incorporates a device he compared to nunchuks.

It's only dangerous if Kalish doesn't do it every day.

"By the time I go through this full routine, I am ready to do the rest of the day," said Kalish, 26, a non-roster invitee who made the Cubs. "I'm so tight, it's something I have to do."

When Kalish starts to envision doing something else that requires less commitment, he thinks of Ryan Westmoreland. Westmoreland, a promising former Red Sox minor league outfielder Kalish befriended in the Boston organization, retired last year at the age of 22 after two brain surgeries due to a condition called cavernous malformation. He is out of baseball but never far from Kalish's thoughts.

"For me, it would be doing myself and Ryan a disservice if I didn't have a good attitude about my opportunity for a comeback," Kalish said. "When you keep guys like that in the back of your head, it makes it like you're doing it not only for yourself."

Two other people Kalish keeps in mind for inspiration, parents Steve and Eileen, spent the final day of a Chicago visit watching their son drive in three runs Sunday against the Phillies. It was just one game in a long season but felt like more to a family that, only eight months ago, sat in a California hospital wondering if Ryan ever would be the same after cervical fusion surgery.

"This has been worse for my mom and dad than for me so it was cool to have them there Sunday," Kalish said. "If you had told me when I was laying in a neck brace last August that I'd go to spring training and make a major league team, I would have told you that you were crazy."

The New Jersey native's craziness all began April 21, 2011, when Kalish injured his left shoulder diving for a popup for Triple-A Pawtucket. Up to that point, the speedy player Cubs executives Theo Epstein and Jason McLeod drafted for the Red Sox in the ninth round of the 2006 amateur draft looked worthy of the hype that accompanied Kalish out of Red Bank (N.J.) High School.

As a prep senior, Kalish hit .422 and went the entire 40-game season without swinging and missing a single pitch — a Jersey legend he confirmed Monday. Professional success followed; the Red Sox named Kalish their minor league offensive player of the year in 2009 and the team's top rookie in 2010 after a July 31 promotion.

But that winter Epstein signed $142 million outfielder Carl Crawford, which demoted Kalish to start the 2011 season and delayed his development longer than anybody imagined. Kalish's first injury set off a string of surgeries to both shoulders and his neck and, last December, the Red Sox cut ties with the player once compared to Darin Erstad.

The presence of Kalish in his No. 51 jersey provides the Cubs a symbol to remind every hot-shot prospect supposedly on the way to stardom that, in baseball, nothing guarantees they will arrive. Kalish also offers an everyday example of perseverance and passion that every clubhouse full of youth needs, a guy who wants "to be a leader on this team."

"That's part of why he made the roster," Cubs general manager Jed Hoyer said. "He's got a real nice edge about him."

It softened momentarily when Epstein called Kalish to his office just before the Cubs left spring training in Arizona. Epstein's voice was soft, his mood somber.

"I was thinking from his tone and the way he was talking, oh, man I'm going to Triple A," Kalish said. "Then he flipped the switch."

So Epstein can act too.

"Theo built up the tension and gave the slow talk about how he makes decisions," Hoyer said. "He built it up because he knew how emotional it would be for Ryan."

Based on the way Kalish choked up getting the good news, Epstein perfectly timed his release of information.

"One of the coolest moments ever," Kalish said. "I like that Theo tried messing with me."